


Inconsolable

by nyagcnopinkuneko



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Gen, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyagcnopinkuneko/pseuds/nyagcnopinkuneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some fates cannot be changed, and what is meant to be cannot be avoided for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconsolable

_I close the door, like so many times, so many times before…_

Jaime knows better than to hope for anything. Hope has gone beyond all reckoning since the icy talons of winter had closed around Westeros. Any chance that Brienne was out there alive in the wasteland of the Vale seemed lessened by every inch of snow that settled to the ground.

No, it was better not to think of her, especially since he had his own hide to think of. Winter had taken the spark out of many of the last remnants of the Young Wolf’s campaign against the Lannisters but that did not mean it was getting easier to bring order to the realm. If Jaime managed it, achieving this feat “singlehanded” at least would not be a misnomer.

So he pushed thoughts of Brienne away. The woman, if she was alive, could more than handle herself. After all she had been through, he knew there was no one better equipped.

_Filled like a scene on the cutting room floor, when I let you walk away tonight without a word…_

She could not ask him to stay. He had duties to perform and she had a quest to complete. At least now there was only one place left to her. The Vale was well protected and the areas around it savagely handled by the wild mountain folk. Jaime had told her the best way to handle them was to claim friendship to Tyrion, despite the fact that it was not exactly true, seeing as Tyrion had fled before they had arrived in King’s Landing.

Still, a lie was better than getting herself killed before she even reached the Bloody Gate. Jaime could not have come even free of his duties, for how would Brienne explain his presence to Sansa if she found and freed her? She needed the girl’s swift trust.

So she did not say anything after Jaime mounted his steed and bade her a very stilted farewell. He was not angry with her, they established that before he left, but there was something in his eyes that Brienne could not shake even as she pushed her way through the dense drifts of snow.

She wished, more than once, that she had had the courage to say the things that were left unspoken and it occurred to her that the chance to do so may never come again.

_I try to sleep, but the clock is stuck on thoughts of you and me…_

Dreams about Brienne still disconcerted him. He had become so accustomed to dreaming about what he guessed most men in the seven kingdoms dreamt about: his sister. But Brienne’s form had begun to replace Cersei’s long ago. The tall warrioress was with him constantly, in both his waking and dreaming thoughts.

Surely, he must have been going mad.

He did not know how to interpret his feelings in a way that avoided making himself uncomfortable. After a lifetime of only loving one other person, the very idea that someone else might earn that same level of feeling from him had never even crossed his mind. Yet there it was, like a scar that would not fade. Brienne was everything for which he had never accounted, and he knew, eventually, that that depth of feeling may well be his undoing.

Still the dreams persisted, and his yearning for her companionship, her familiarity, her crooked teeth, her nose, her strong shoulders, her fine hair, her everything, drove him slowly to the point of insanity. If only he were not so committed right now to salvaging what little was left of his tattered honor, he would be on his way to her that instant, winter be damned.

He loved Brienne of Tarth, and he almost hated himself for it.

_A thousand more regrets unraveling. If you were here right now I swear I’d tell you this…_

Brienne had made a lot of mistakes on this quest, more than she wanted to make. But looking back on those mistakes could only result in more doubts about how to move forward and she could not afford to do that.

Still she wished for Jaime’s companionship, if only to break up the monotony of her daily toil through woods and underbrush. Pod served for company well enough, but he was always so…agreeable; it was maddening. At least Jaime was not afraid to tell her when he thought she was being foolish. A little admonishment would be refreshing at this point. Sometimes she tried to imagine what Jaime would say about something she was doing, the way his lips would curl into a sneer or his eyes would roll if she were being particularly thick. The effect was not nearly as satisfying than if he were really there.

So maybe she did look back sometimes. Always back to their separation. Would he have thought her weak if she asked him to stay and help her? Maybe that is what he wanted her to do. Perhaps she had missed one of his tells. There was no way to be certain, though, and that tormented her more than anything else.

_Baby, I don’t wanna waste another day, keeping it inside is killing me, cause all I’d ever wanted comes right down to you…_

Jaime was tired of waking up to a world awash in cold, cold white, endless white, eternal white. He would give his other hand for a bit of greenery, or even the heat of the Dornish desert, anything to escape the seething, menacing cold. Nights came and went when he thought he might never be warm again.

The last time he had felt any sort of warmth was huddled up next to a fire with Brienne and Pod, both shivering themselves but most likely warmer then that they were right now, Jaime surmised. Still, they were together and had each other for warmth, while Jaime traipsed to and for through drifts of snow up to his neck, knowing he would eventually have to return to King’s Landing and unable to make up his mind to do it. He tried to tell himself that he was still doing the realm’s work, but every time he led his soldiers anywhere near the Vale, he knew he was only lying to himself.

He did not ever want to return to King’s Landing, especially if all he had heard of Cersei’s corruption and fall from grace were to be believed. It sent chills through him, the idea that Qyburn might have possibly gained pleasure from his suffering when repairing his arm. That Cersei had aligned herself with the former maester in such a repugnant manner made his stomach roil and his heart twinge. The gods had flipped a coin upon their birth as well, it seemed, and the Targaryens were not the only family touched by madness.

Brienne was the only golden thing left in his life that he trusted. Would his life always be spent in pursuit of all things he deemed bright and valuable? Was that the drive his Lannister blood gave him? Maybe it did not matter, if only he could run to the one safe shelter to which he still had a claim.

_I wish that I could find the words to say, baby, I would tell you every time you leave I’m inconsolable…_

Dry heaving from hunger started not long after try slipped past the Bloody Gate. A journey that should not have taken longer than a week had been hampered by constant snow, and a week turned into a fortnight. There was nowhere from which Brienne could steal food, ad times were desperate enough now that she would not even think twice about taking a loaf of bread from a stranger if she happened to stumble upon one.

Winter makes thieves and beggars of us all, she thought as the two of them, Pod and her, wrestled through a high eave of loosely packed snow.

The daylight only lasted a few hours a day, and Brienne knew she would soon have to abandon heir journey for the day. Traveling in such conditions and I this environment, craggy and uneven, was suicide.

Pod was grunting laboriously behind her and Brienne winced. He did not even have the wherewithal to complain as a boy his age might, but she wished he would. She wished one of them was not so thrice damned determined not to break under the significant amount of pressure they faced.

“Seven hells,” she finally growled and stopped short, Pod nearly rushing headlong into her.

“My lady,” Pod said in his usual way, with a stammer and a blink.

“We cannot go on like this. There must be a faster way and we must find it before we die out here,” Brienne replied, “We must find the mountain clans and beg their help.”

She could feel how wide Pod’s eyes went even though she could not see him. She turned to him.

“If Jaime were here he’d say the same, and you squired for Tyrion when he was in league with them, we’re you not,” she said, pushing back the hair from her face and looking up into the mountains, where the Gates of the Moon loomed impossibly far from them.

“Y-yes but,” Pod managed.

“Then you will help me, we can’t waste anymore time,” Brienne stated brusquely.

“B-but I-I don’t know how to find them,” Pod insisted.

Brienne sighed. A long silence stretched out between her and the young boy.

“Do you often think of what Ser Jaime would suggest,” Pod finally managed in a soft voice.

More often than I’d like, Brienne thought.

_I climb the walls, I can see the edge but I can’t take the fall…_

Jaime should not see the irony of throwing a young man from a parapet and how in the end the Father did justice on him by making him a cripple as well. It bothered him more when he thought of the fact that losing a hand made him more vulnerable than the Stark boy, who could ride and shoot and wield a sword, even from a seated position with two good hands. But the Father was punishing him for more than Bran. He was punishing Jaime for his flippant arrogance, for allowing himself to be poisoned by the words of others until he believe they were true. He was a bad man, a dishonorable one, a man who fucked his sister and sired bastards on her, a man willing to kill children to keep his true shame a secret. After all he had given to protect King’s Landing, he became one anyway, all for the love of the one woman he was loath to go near again.

Some days ago, he abandoned his men, telling them to make for the capital with as much haste as they could manage. Winter had come and death would claim them all if they did not turn back to the last safe haven in all the Seven Kingdoms. When the men asked him where he would go if not back with them, he said that good men still protected Tommen, and there was another child out there in need of protection, protection he promised long ago.

The men left without much argument; they could see his resolve plain as day. Jaime had taken them as close to the Vale as he could without arousing suspicion. It could be days, even weeks, before he found Brienne and Pod.

The night he reached the Bloody Gate, he pulled his horse up short and stared pensively beyond the great stone arch. Brienne never asked him to go with her. In all likelihood, she wanted him well out of the way to save them both the risk of him being captured and killed. The Brotherhood was in shambles, but that did not mean there were not people out there who still wanted his head. Jaime chewed at his lip. Even if she did not want him there, she needed him, he thought. Needed his shrewdness, his ability to think on his feet (and off them). And all the Seven Hells be damned because even if she did not need him, he needed her.

Better to lose the horse, he decided, kicking off of the mare as best he could and then shooing it back towards the way they came. If the gods were good, she would reach King’s Landing before freezing to death. Were he already with the wench, he would have suggested killing the horse and taking what meat they could, but alone he could carry little and forget about properly slaughtering the animal. 

He knew it was a waste, but there was nothing for it; somewhere up in those mountains she was waiting for her, he knew it. He just had to go and get her.

So he did.

_I’ve memorized the number so why can’t I make the call, baby cause I know you’ll always be with me in the possibility…_

They stumble blindly through the woods, not sure how to draw attention without drawing attention. Cries could attract the wrong people, after all, and they had to be careful.

Brienne was positive that they had been wandering about in circles. Delirium from hunger, having eaten nothing but moss, tree bark, acorns and what ever other fungi they could find, was starting to set in. Everyday seemed an endless circle.

Her dreams were fevered, starved. Jaime became everyone and everyone was Jaime. Her father, mother, her long dead brother, Lady Stoneheart, Renly and Loras as they made love, she could not banish him from her thoughts.

We will die soon, she believed.

She was hollow inside, not just from hunger of body, but hunger of spirit. Pod had become a thin, gray thing that followed her like a shade. When she went to one knee as they walked, he would push her.

“Don’t die my lady, I can’t kill a Walker, I can’t kill…,” he would whisper.

What she would have given for a bow. She dreamed every night of a bow to kill the occasional game she saw. Every animal looked as starved as she felt. It was no matter, meat was meat.

In her dreams one night, a golden man with one hand woke her and fed her thin broth and covered her in his warmth and told he she was safe. It was the most beautiful dream she had ever had.

When she woke and the golden man was still there, stoking a small fire over which hung two tragically thin coneys, she was convinced she was still dreaming.

“Jaime,” she whispered, her head throbbing, “Jaime…”

“You have a shit sense of direction. It only took me two days to find you and Pod tells me you’ve been wandering in circles for the better part of two weeks,” he said, the anger in his voice laced thickly with concern.

“I’m not dreaming,” Brienne groaned in a soft voice, her voice cracking, “You’re here.”

And for the first time, she would blame the exhaustion later, she wept before the Kingslayer, before Jaime, before her golden knight.

_I don’t wanna be like this, I just wanna let you know that everything that I hold in is everything I can’t let go…_

There was no choice after that but for the three of them to sleep together to keep warm. Brienne had been both shocked, gratified and embarrassed when Jaime explained to her that they would not have to climb all the way up to The Eyrie in order to search for Sansa. When winter came, the high seat was abandoned and all the inhabitants moved down to the Gates of the Moon until it passed.

Still, it made their mission all the easier, and their way clearer. Brienne kept looking to her side in disbelief that Jaime was actually there as they trudged through snow up to their thighs.

“Why did you come back,” she finally said to him in a low whisper, hoping the sound of falling snow would cover the pitch of her voice and shield their conversation from Pod.

Jaime looked at her from the corner of his eye, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips; Brienne could see it even through the thick beard that covered his face.  
“If I hadn’t, then this whole quest might have failed,” Jaime started, then held up his hand when Brienne made to protest, “I said might have, but that is not why I came, Brienne.”

The sound of her name on his lips warmed her to the tips of her toes and she could not help the expectant look on her face. Jaime sighed and Brienne mirrored the action. She stopped when Jaime placed his hand over hers, stopping them mid-stride and she turned to face him. Brienne could hear Pod floundering ahead of them, but for a moment, that did not matter.

“Jaime,” she said softly, locking eyes with him.

“Brienne,” Jaime replied.

The air around them seemed to grow hot and close; Brienne was not sure she was even breathing.

“Why did you come back,” she whispered hoarsely, her throat as dry at the Dornish desert.

“Don’t you know,” Jaime whispered back.

“Tell me,” Brienne insisted, needing to hear the words.

“Brienne, I-“

“My lord,” Pod’s voice broke through the stillness around them.

Brienne blinked hard, her head snapping back as the realization that they had been drawing closer dawned on her features.

“Ser Jaime …,” she croaked.

Jaime’s smile was pained, “Never mind, we best get on.”

Brienne stood bolted to where she was as the man pushed on along the path Pod had broken for them. What had just happened between them, or rather …  
What had not happened?

_Baby, I don’t wanna waste another day, keeping it inside is killing me, cause all I ever wanted comes right down to you…_

When she found Sansa, the girl did not appear as she expected. She was in plain clothes, standing over the form of a man who was slumped on the table, his fist loosely gripping the stem of a wine goblet.

“Lady Sansa,” Brienne said in a low voice.

The young lady looked up at Brienne, tears glistening in her eyes and the tall woman was left breathless by her beauty for a moment.

“He trusted the wrong person,” Sansa muttered, dropping the small vial that she had been holding in her hand, “He lost the Game.”

“Yes, Lady Sansa,” Brienne approached Sansa closely, “He has lost, but you can still lose if you stay in this place a moment longer.”

“And can I trust you,” Sansa backed away, her expression twisting suddenly, “Who are you and where did you come from, whom do you serve?”

“I serve- I served your Lady Mother, the Lady Catelyn of House Stark and Tully, mother of Robb, Sansa, Arya, Brandon, and Rickon,” Brienne said carefully, “She bade me find you and return you to Winterfell before she died, and I failed in that, but I mean to fulfill my oath to her and bear you hence.”

For a moment, it seemed as though the child believed her, and then crash and clang behind her broke the spell.

“Lannister,” Sansa bit out with a spiteful hiss, “You’re with him, the Kingslayer!”

Brienne turned to see Jaime leaning against the molding of the door, breathing heavily.

“We were not followed, Pod is watching down below, we can make it out safely,” he said to Brienne.

“Pod,” Sansa gasped, her face constricting in horror, “You mean Podrick Payne, my Lord Husband’s squire?! You mean to bring me back to King’s Landing. I will not go! I WILL NOT!”

Brienne winced as Sansa’s voice rose.

“My lady, you must, you must trust me, you must,” she repeated in calm tones, “Yes, I am with Ser Jaime and I have Lord Tyrion’s squire, but I swear upon my life and your father’s sword I will not harm you, nor is it my intention to bring you to any place but home. I so swear or you can behead me yourself.”

Jaime kept blessedly silent behind her; Brienne could almost feel him making himself small behind her, less threatening.

Sansa stared at her, her expression cold as the icy snow that fell without.

“I have heard enough oaths to break the bow of any ship, shatter the blade of any sword, crush the heart of any man, there is no oath you could make that would convince me to go with you,” the lady finally said.

“Then what would,” Brienne said slowly, dreading the answer.

Sansa raised a hand and pointed a finger.

“The Kingslayer’s head for a start,” she said, her voice cold and her eyes colder.

_I wish that I could find the words to say, baby, I would tell you every time you leave…_

Jaime almost could not help the smile that tugged at his careworn features. He approached the Stark girl slowly, arms outspread to show he was weaponless.

“There is a saying that the apple does not fall from the tree, my lady,” he said in a tone that belied his discomfort, “You Lady Mother wanted much the same, or rather, what was left of her.”

“Jaime,” Brienne tried to cut him off, but Jaime lifted his hand to silence her.

“This woman saved my life that day, and she would likely save it again if need be, but you and I …,” he gestured between himself and Sansa, who observed him with a hardened expression, “Both know how long a man can run from the crimes he has committed.”

Jaime’s eyes fell on the prone body of Petyr Baelish. He could make out the stains on the man’s breeches from where his bowels had released in death, the stench of which had started to permeate the air.

“You pushed my brother off a tower, you sired bastards upon your own sister, and you waged war upon my family, do you deny these things,” the girl said, her back straight, her jaw firm.

“I do not,” Jaime said softly, looking into Sansa’s eyes.

Try as he might, he could see no wavering there. This was a girl who had suffered far too many great slights to turn back from her path now. In her was the blood of hard winters and cold rivers. Her hair was fire but her veins were ice.

Jaime turned to Brienne with a sad smile.

“Give me Oathkeeper,” he commanded in a gentle tone.

He winced as Brienne’s eyes widened in horror, but he shook his head.

“The sword, my lady.”

He could see the wench’s jaw tightening with emotion as she drew the sword from its scabbard and handed it over to Jaime. He then turned back to Sansa.

“Your father had a saying, did he not,” he said slowly, presenting the sword to Sansa, “He who passes the sentence must swing the sword. If I must lose my head, it is only fitting that it be by your hand … with your father’s blade.”

“Ice is gone,” Sansa spat.

Jaime shook his head and offered the sword to the girl again, “No, it is here. I present you Oathkeeper, reforged by my father from the remnants of Ice. It is your father’s sword. It shall have my head.”

“Jaime, no,” Brienne shouted, her voice anguished, “Sansa, give him a trial by battle, let the Seven judge him.”

“The gods are dead, there are only ashes now,” Sansa whispered, her voice thick with emotion as she stepped forward and ran her fingers over the flat of the blade, “And the Kingslayer freely admits his guilt.”

Jaime watched in fascination as Sansa’s delicate fingers wrapped themselves around the hilt of the blade and took it from him. He could tell by the way her wrist trembled that she had never held a sword, but her hand steadied as the other came to grip the blade as well.

“Kneel,” she hissed.

“Lady Stark, please.”

Brienne was sobbing freely now from somewhere behind Jaime. He could not bear to look at her, or else he would lose his nerve to do the right thing.

“Please,” he said at last, when he was on his knees before the last great lady of Stark and Tully, “Let me die with what honor is left to me, Brienne, and know my love for you goes with me.”

“Jaime,” the woman moaned.

Jaime, for a moment, thought he saw something flicker in Sansa’s eyes, but that something disappeared quickly and he offered his neck. He knew he would die in bloody agony, for rarely did someone strike clean on the first try.

The last thing Jaime saw were Sansa Stark’s feet to his right. They were small and spread wide apart. Jaime thought of how it was good that she had a firm stance. The last thing he heard was Brienne as she sobbed out that she loved him, too.

_I’m inconsolable…_

**Author's Note:**

> [Author’s Note]: I AM SO SORRY I DID NOT MEAN FOR IT TO TURN OUT THIS WAY! I just realized that once I’d reached the end, there was no other way I could finish it. SO SORRY.  
> The song is Inconsolable by Backstreet Boys


End file.
